


Last Rites

by ozonecologne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Haunted House, M/M, Sacrifice, Slow Burn, ghost!cas, mechanic!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4074664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozonecologne/pseuds/ozonecologne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the two sentence horror story thread on reddit:<br/><i>Years ago, a lone chair appeared in the center of the basement, and no matter how many times I put it back in the corner it always found a way back to the center. It took a long time to realize it was positioned underneath the kitchen, almost like someone had taken a seat at the dinner table with the rest of us.</i><br/>Dean and his family live in a blue house at the end of the road in Lawrence, Kansas. Something lives there with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [currentlycrying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/currentlycrying/gifts).



> Work dedicated to currentlycrying for sending me lots of encouraging and oftentimes hilarious notes on my work. Thank you!
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](http://ozonecologne.tumblr.com) for a hecka good time.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord, amen.”

“Amen,” Sam, Dean, and Mary echoed. As soon as John had finished saying grace, the Winchester boys quickly began to lurch towards and bicker over the serving bowl of mashed potatoes, knocking elbows and certainly not above pulling hair. “Ow! DEAN!”

John smacked his eldest son on the head with the back of his spoon, and Dean hissed. “No fighting at the dinner table,” he said dryly, reaching for the gravy boat.

Mary rolled her eyes and politely asked Sam to pass the rolls.

Their dining room table was made for six, but since it was only the four of them Dean and Sam sat next to each other one side, Mary on the other, and John at the head. There was always a space at the end of the table – which Bobby or Grandpa Samuel sometimes occupied – and a space beside Mary, across from Dean – which Pastor Jim preferred whenever he came to visit.

They chattered while they ate, the four of them, about school and work and plans for the weekend. Sam kept poking at his latest loose tooth, and Mary gaze him a mischievous look over the table. Sam dropped his hand guiltily, catching his mother’s gaze. His hair flopped down into his eyes and he brushed it away irately, even though it had been _his_ decision to let it grow out.

“Can I go to the movies with Mark on Saturday?” Dean asked, picking apart a piece of roast beef.

“Dean honey, please swallow your food before you speak,” Mary chided. “And yes, you may.”

“Woo hoo!” he mumbled, before remembering himself and closing his mouth.

Sam perked up immediately. “Can I come?”

“No way, Pipsqueak,” Dean protested. “Big kids only.”

“Aw, come on, Dean! Why can’t I go? Mom!” he whined.

Mary and John shared a look and John shrugged. “I don’t see why Sam can’t tag along.”

“Dad!” Dean groaned. “Sammy, you’re not even gonna _like_ this movie,” he complained.

Sam sneered. “Quit calling me that, _Dean_. And how do _you_ know?” he griped with all the righteous indignation capable of an eight year old.

Dean grimaced all through dinner, the matter decided – at least until John began muttering about the new projects he’d been sidled with at the garage.

After the Winchesters had for the most part satisfied their appetites, Mary declared that Dean and Sam were in charge of dishes (they didn’t have a dishwasher). The boys set to work flinging soap bubbles at one another instantly, singing off key to the songs on John’s old tapes. Mary rolled her eyes fondly, heading for the living room to maybe read for a few hours, and John announced that he was going to take a shower. The Winchester family may all head in their separate directions, but no matter what they ALWAYS sat down for family dinner.

Mary had just settled into her favorite armchair – a lovely ivory, her mother had upholstered it herself – with a blanket across her lap and her book opened to the dog-eared page when there was a loud crash from the kitchen. The tense silence that followed gave Mary some pause. “Boys?” she called, already standing and off to investigate.

Dean and Sam were both staring down at a broken glass on the kitchen floor, covered up to their elbows in dish soap. Sam had some suds clinging to the ends of his hair. “It was my fault,” Dean said quickly, though the sickly color to Sam’s face told a different story.

Mary took Sam by the arm and gently guided him around the broken glass and looked up at Dean. “Go down to the basement and get the dustpan, Dean,” she said softly. She wasn’t mad about the glass, not really. She needed to check the bottoms of Sam’s feet to make sure no glass had gotten stuck in there.

“You alright, Sammy?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he croaked.

Dean trotted to the basement door and flicked on the light, darting down the steps to get the broom and the dustpan.

 

Dean had always hated that room. It was perpetually damp and dusty, and when he was younger his dad had somehow gotten it into his head that there was a monster who lived under the stairs (just the boiler gurgling, he knew). He never wanted to spend too long down there anyway. He wasn’t like Sam, who’d amuse himself for hours digging through the antiques and finding new places to hide, scaring Dean out of his freaking mind when he jumped forth from the shadows. He always cuffed him over the head and hid upstairs, slamming the door behind him.

Something about this basement always unsettled him.

He went downstairs with his destination in mind: the cupboard right at the bottom of the stairs. All he had to do was sneak down, grab the broom, and run back up. Piece of cake.

He opened the cabinet, heart rate picking up despite himself, and grabbed the broom handle with an irrational sense of relief. Just as he turned back to the stairs, a flicker of something in the corner of his eye made him spin around.

There was nothing there of course, just the light bulb dangling from the ceiling in the center of the room, casting creepy shadows all along the walls. A lone chair was pulled into the middle of the floor, just to the left of the light bulb.

It wasn’t necessarily an odd sight – John inherited a lot of furniture and things when his parents died and they all sort of collected down in the basement. Dean even recognized the chair. It looked out of place in the center of the room; maybe Dad had dragged it over so he could reach the wiring for the light? Replace the bulb maybe? And he had just forgotten to put it back.

Hesitantly, Dean made his way over and dragged the chair so that it was resting against the opposite wall, clearing the floor once again. He inspected the space for a moment, and then he ran like hell back up the stairs.

He tried to hide the fact he was huffing a bit when he got back to the kitchen.

 

“Dean, run this down to the basement for me, would you?” John asked him one day as they were putting away groceries. He had gone to the farmer’s market because he knew Mary liked the fresh vegetables, and he may have splurged a little on the hefty sack of potatoes. “They won’t fit in the pantry.”

“Sure,” Dean answered obediently. “With the other stuff, right?”

“Right,” John replied. “And don’t dilly dally. Your mother’s just getting the chicken out of the oven,” he commanded.

“Yes, sir,” Dean said, hoisting up the bag of potatoes.

He stumbled a little under their weight and had to peer over the top of the lumpy bundle in his arms so that he wouldn’t slip on the stairs. He took his time, putting one foot in front of the other carefully. “Geez,” he grumbled when he finally reached the bottom.

He rounded the corner and stuck the bag on top of their stockpile of canned goods and jugs of water (tornado precautions – this was Kansas after all). Dusting off his hands, he turned and frowned.

The chair was back in the middle of the room.

Not quite where it had been before, like someone had gotten halfway to dragging it to where it needed to be and had given up abruptly. Dean eyed it warily, aware that _it’s just a chair, Dean, no need to get all worked up_ , but still not quite able to shake the lingering paranoia that came with seeing a horror movie with Mark on the weekend. Poor Sam had nightmares for days.

He edged along the wall quickly, not taking his eyes off the chair, and slowly (backwards) ascended the stairs just as Sam called down to him, “Dean! Dinner!”

 

He didn’t ask his father about it. What if Dad said _no_? “No, son, I didn’t put that chair there.” Then what?

“Sam, do you think our house is haunted?” he asked his brother walking home from school together one day. It certainly didn’t _look_ haunted from the outside; his mother’s hydrangea bushes were blooming spectacularly, the shutters were just repainted a crisp white. There were no creepy bolts of lightning, no bats roosting in their attic. It was just their little blue house at the end of the road.

Sam shoved him lightly. “Quit trying to scare me, Dean.”

“I’m serious. Do you?”

Sam shook his head. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Dean. You said so.”

Dean thought back to the nights consoling Sam about his nightmares, his mother dutifully making a show of checking under the bed and in their closets for monsters in the dark. He shook his head. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

“‘S ok. What made you ask?”

Dean shook his head and tightened his grip on his backpack straps. “Nothin’.”

 

He nearly had a psychotic break when Sam jumped up the stairs from the basement wearing a gleeful expression one day. He’d been playing ball in the house (Dad didn’t approve, but he also didn’t have to _know_ ), and he’d kicked it down into the basement, through the open door. “The coolest thing just happened,” he explained to his brother, who was doing his math homework at the kitchen table.

“What?” he indulged, without looking up.

“I thought I lost my ball downstairs, but it just rolled out from under the dresser all by itself! Lucky, right?”

Dean stilled. “The dresser?”

“Yeah. You know – the one behind the chairs.”

Dean dropped his pencil and slammed the basement door shut. “Why don’t you play outside for a while? You know how Dad gets.”

Sam frowned and rolled his plastic ball around in his hands. “Alright,” he relented, heading towards the front door. “Will you come and play with me?”

“Absolutely,” Dean agreed.

He had no desire to be anywhere _near_ the basement.

 

The incident with the ball pretty much made up Dean’s mind that the basement was haunted, but it was over the course of the next couple months when Dean started to believe it.

It was July, and unseasonably hot, but they never once needed to turn up the air conditioner. There were random cold spots all over the house. “I guess the house is just naturally cool,” Mary said. “You’d be surprised the difference being inside makes, away from all that humidity.”

John shrugged. “As long as we’re not paying for AC.”

Mary chuckled and peered over her mixing bowl. “Dean, you wanna taste test?” he asked, holding the spoon out for him. Dean eagerly took his mother’s offering but stared sullenly at the basement door while he tried his mother’s pie filling. “Brown sugar,” he proclaimed seriously, staring down the wood grain.

“Thanks, Peach,” she said, reaching for some in the cabinet. “Oh, we’re out. Dean, could you run down to the basement and –”

Dean was out of the room quicker than Mary had thought possible. Weird. Dean always sticks around while Mary’s making pie.

Then there was the creaking at night. Their house was old, like really old, older than Dad even, and Dean knew sometimes that old things just creaked and groaned for no reason. But everything seemed more significant now, like the creaking downstairs wasn’t just weary planks of wood but footsteps, wandering aimlessly up and down the corridors. Dean kept his door shut and refused to go downstairs, even for a glass of water. He didn’t sleep that much, and always woke in a mild panic when he arose from an unexpected snooze.

When he had to get up and get to the bathroom down the hall, he had to walk across the threshold where the stairs that led to the kitchen met the upstairs floor. He dashed as quickly and quietly as possible across the stairs and all but slammed the bathroom door shut, just breathing heavily on the side for a moment before actually taking care of business.

He cracked the door open slowly, and on his way back to his room, he couldn’t help the fearful glance into the kitchen, towards the direction of the basement door.

It was open.

With an undignified yelp Dean sprinted back to his room and buried himself under the covers, shivering and squeezing his eyes shut.

There was something in his house. Something was living in the Winchester’s basement.

 

Dean spent a lot of time upstairs. Every time he’d go down into the basement, for errands and chores he couldn’t get out of, the chair would be right where he found it that first time, underneath the light bulb and to the left.

It was on his Mom’s birthday that he made an important connection.

John had hidden Mary’s birthday presents in the basement, naturally, and Dean went downstairs with him to collect them and bring them up to the dining room, where they’d have cake and sing and distribute said gifts. He felt a little safer having his dad downstairs with him, but he still watched the chair carefully. He never bothered setting it back after the first time. He knew it would just end up right back where it was.

What was it about that spot anyway? It wasn’t any cooler or warmer than any other place in the basement. The two Winchester men clomped back up the stairs and Dean shut the door behind him, glancing out into the dining room where his mom was waiting. Sam was waiting in the kitchen to light the candles (his favorite part of the birthday ritual). When Dean looked at the dining room table, his mom seated in her usual spot, he almost dropped the presents in his hands.

The dining room was directly over the basement.

He could see it in his mind’s eye – the spot where the chair had been dragged, it corresponded to the empty space right next to his mother.

Like someone was sitting down with them for dinner.

For months Dean stewed in this realization, fearfully watching the empty chair next to his mom every night at dinner. He never reached across the space for an offered bowl or glass – he merely shoved things at his mom now, eyes darting furtively to the seat beside her.

“Dean, is something wrong?”

Dean shook his head and felt dread roll around in his gut like a physical thing. “Nope.”

“Honey, you look a little pale. Why don’t you go lie down?” Mary suggested, reaching across the table to put her hand on her son’s forehead.

“I’m fine,” Dean told her, not wanting to leave his family alone with their mysterious dinner guest.

Because that must be what this was. A guest come to dinner, one he knew he couldn’t trust, one that would try to prey on his family. He’d seen The Amityville Horror; he knew what this was. And he was the only one who knew it was there.

After dinner, he opened the basement door and peered over the railing. The chair was where Dean expected, at the lip of the imaginary dinner table. He glanced around the doorframe to look at the dining room, then back at the chair, then back at the dining room, just to make sure it really was really the same spot. (Was there ever any doubt?)

Dean went into the basement and shut the door behind him, sitting on the top step. He kept the light on, and stared at the chair angrily through the slats of the railing. “What do you _want_ , huh?”

Nobody answered his question. There was no stirring of the wind, the light bulb didn’t so much as flicker. Dean stared at the chair and he listened.

“What, cat got your tongue?” he dared to ask.

Suddenly, the chair tipped over.

Dean wrenched the door open so fast he almost gave himself a bloody nose.

 

When he turned 18, Dad tossed him the keys to the Impala. Dean got in the car and didn’t look back.

 

Years went by and things got quiet, almost suspiciously so, at the old Winchester house. With Dean to the wind, Sam quietly did his schoolwork, went to coffee houses with his girlfriend, and helped out around the house until he got his acceptance letter to Stanford University. John was cutting back on hours at the garage, helping Bobby out at his salvage yard with the extra time, and Mary started taking more shifts at the clinic to help pay for Sam’s Ivy League tuition. They heard from Dean as often as they needed to.

The chair never moved again, always situated (upright) in the middle of the room, at the table.

Dean came home on a Thursday, and all the lights in the basement blew out simultaneously.

 

Dean watched that old chair carefully, hyperaware of the ghost’s presence just downstairs. Apparently, it couldn’t leave the basement – it always sat down there alone, unable to get to the dining room in truth but still trying to pretend. Even when Dean left the door open, watching from the kitchen counter, there was no indication that the thing could leave. It was stuck there, somehow. That definitely made Dean happy.

He never forgot what happened when he’d spoken aloud to what he hoped was just an empty room. Slowly, among all the other wild stuff he’d seen over the years, it had become a distant memory, like a dream from another world. He was twenty-two, working at his father’s auto-shop during the day and Ellen’s bar downtown for the nights, a real flesh-and-blood adult with a car and facial hair. Had he imagined the whole thing?

He wanted to test that theory. He wasn’t some scared little pre-teen anymore; Dean made a salary, he’d had serious girlfriends and drove his little brother to fucking Stanford in the fall – what the hell was he afraid of? The monster in the basement? Please.

Dean wiped his hands off with the rag in the kitchen and walked into the basement, rolling the little flashlight he kept in his jumpsuit pocket around in his palm. He flicked off the light and stood in the center of the room.

He stood, and waited, and nothing happened. He shifted his weight, breathed slow and long and deep, bit his bottom lip. He took the flashlight out of his pocket. “Pft. See? Nothing,” he said to himself, clicking the little button on the top.

The flashlight beam cut through the dark, and landed on a pair of striking blue eyes, staring _right at Dean_.

“JESUS, FUCK!” he cried, jerking against the wall, nearly dropping the flashlight. “SHIT, GOD,” he cried, plastering himself against the concrete.

“Not exactly,” the _thing_ said to him, blue eyes winking in the weak light.

_Oh my god, I’m going to die. The ghost in my basement is fucking real as shit and it’s going to murder me._

It took a step toward him.

“Whoa, ok, ok!” Dean shrieked. “Just – ah!” he said, clambering towards the stairs. “What the fuck, what the fuck,” he kept mumbling to himself, quickly making peace with the fact that his poor mother would have to find his mangled body down in her cellar sometime very soon.

The blue eyes widened and the thing froze. “I’m not going to hurt you,” the thing said quietly. Dean belatedly realized that there was a form attached to those blue eyes, and its hands – smooth and pale – were raised in a placating gesture.

“Oh, well that’s a relief,” Dean spat, climbing backwards up the stairs while trying to balance the flashlight in his hand without taking his eyes off the ghost.

“Dean, you have nothing to be afraid of,” the ghost insisted, following him.

Dean blanched. “What – how do you know my name? What the hell _are_ you?” he cried.

The ghost put down its hands and – wait, did it just roll its eyes? “My name is Castiel,” it said. “If it would make you more comfortable, I could turn the light on.”

“No!” Dean gasped. “No, just. No. Stay over there.” He didn’t want to see some grizzly zombie among his father’s antiques. It would be better with the light off. He’d never have to know what it looked like.

The blue eyes actually turned a little sad, downturned at the floor. “Alright,” _Castiel_ said quietly. Its voice was low and rough, like chains dragged along the floor or the hum of a table saw. It was dark and menacing and Dean didn’t like it one bit.

Dean stayed on the middle step, one hand on the wood and one hand on the flashlight, foot outstretched as a barrier between him and the ghost. “Ok, good. Now,” Dean floundered, waving the flashlight. “What are you… doing here?” he asked it.

He could just barely make out the shape of Castiel shrugging his shoulders. Broad, but not as wide-set as Dean. Good. “I appear to be… stuck.”

“Stuck?” Dean repeated incredulously. “Stuck, how?”

The blue eyes blinked. “I haven’t been able to leave this world. I don’t know why, but oblivion… just won’t come.”

Dean shook his head. “Ok, so. You’re dead,” he said, pointing in the general direction of Castiel. “And you’re stuck in my parents’ basement?”

Castiel laughed a little bit, and goddamn if that wasn’t the weirdest thing ever. “Technically, it used to be _my_ basement.”

“Wait. You’re one of the Miltons. The previous owners of the house?” Dean asked.

The blue eyes nodded up and down.

Dean furrowed his brow. “Yeah… right. Castiel. I remember hearing about you. You were –”

“Stabbed,” Castiel finished. “Out of spite, and jealousy. It wasn’t very painful. I hardly even remember it.”

Dean blinked slowly. “Well. Good?”

The blue eyes twinkled, and Dean saw the hint of a little smile beneath the long slope of Castiel’s illuminated nose. “Small blessings,” Castiel said, seemingly at ease.

This was so weird. Dean was talking to a dead guy. He glanced over Castiel’s shoulder at the pile of furniture. “But what’s with the chair?” he asked. “At the table. You pull it right up to the table. What for?”

Dean couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that little flick of the eyes was out of _embarrassment._ “I… Well, uh,” Castiel stuttered. “I’m sorry, about that. I just. Well…” he said, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck. Dean was distracted by the movement, such a human gesture. “I come from a big family. One that I was constantly surrounded by, and I’ve been down here a long time, Dean. When you all sit down to dinner together, I don’t know…”

“You’re lonely,” Dean breathed, startled by the revelation. Castiel missed having a family. Sitting down to dinner to talk about their days. Jesus Christ.

Castiel’s eyes dropped to floor, and Dean wished more than anything he could see them, unravel the bits of mystery still in him. “Very,” Castiel confirmed, as if admitting some great weakness. “I didn’t mean to intrude on yours, but… it was all I had for a while,” he said, gesturing lamely to the dark space behind him. His eyes ticked up, waiting for Dean’s reaction.

Dean didn’t quite know what to think about it. It was incredibly sad, what he was hearing, but it could also be a total lie. Ghosts, demons, they did that, didn’t they?

Dean cocked the flashlight at him accusingly. “Yeah, yeah, nice sob story. Don’t think I’m going to forgive you or anything. You still scared the piss out of me as a kid, when you tipped the chair over,” Dean said. “It was fucking creepy, man. And watching me out through the door at night? Don’t think I didn’t know. Shit,” he said, wiping a hand down his face. “What gives with _that,_ huh?”

Castiel’s eyes lit up and Dean could sense that whatever his reason, Castiel was very passionate about it. “Do you know what it’s _like_ to be invisible, Dean? Stuck in some family’s basement for what you assume is going to be all eternity? And then some little boy, who is unremarkable in almost every way, actually _sees_ you?” Castiel laughed again. “I know you were terrified, but I tried so hard to make you…” he trailed off unexpectedly, taking a step back. “This is the first time I’ve spoken with anyone else in a long time,” he admitted.

Dean narrowed his eyes and stood – his knees were starting to ache – and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t know whether I believe you or not. So I’m gonna go, and you just… stay here.”

Castiel snorted in an affronted way and Dean saw his eyes narrow too. “I’ll do my best,” he retorted sarcastically.

Dean pointed one finger on his free hand towards him. “And stay the hell away from my family.”

He clicked off the flashlight, not expecting a response, and walked the rest of the way up the stairs, shutting the door as he went.

 

It was finally about time that John decided to start selling some of the old furniture collecting dust downstairs. He enlisted Dean to help him clean up and sort through the stuff in the basement.

Dean didn’t want to go, and John had teased, “I thought you’d gotten over this years ago,” referring to his childish terror of the basement. _Oh, if only you’d seen what I saw._

He descended the stairs first and peeked his head around the corner, as if he’d find Castiel sitting in the chair. There was no one there, of course.

The chair was propped up against the wall, upside down.

So Castiel was throwing a tantrum, basically. Dean might have actually hurt his feelings. _Oh come on, that’s ridiculous. Ghosts don’t have feelings,_ Dean convinced himself.

They started pulling big pieces of furniture away from the wall, shaking off cobwebs and shooing away stray millipedes and in one case, a rat, and dusted the big pieces off. “You got any use for this?” John grunted as he dragged the corner of a wardrobe closer to the center of the room.

Dean grunted back as he set his corner down as gently as he could. “Not really,” he said, panting a little. “Maybe that, though,” he said, pointing to a loose headboard. It was nice, sanded on the grain and unvarnished, beautifully decorated. Dean could do a lot with that; it stuck out.

He and John tried to wrestle it free from the pile, but there was an ornately carved corner caught against the edge of a dresser, piled haphazardly on top of a rocking chair and old couch, and just as Dean thought he had wrenched it free the drawer from the dresser was knocked loose, headed straight for Dean’s head. “Dean!”

Dean waited for the impact, shut his eyes, but it didn’t come. The drawer slowed down and then fell right past him, like there was something invisible diverting it’s path –

“Cas,” Dean whispered reverently, the nickname slipping past his lips without his permission.

“What?” John asked.

Dean blinked rapidly and shook his head. “Dad. I said Dad. Uh, close call, huh?”

John snorted as he shook his head. “Better be more careful. I don't think your mother planned on making any emergency room visits today.”

Dean forced a laugh and they got the headboard loose, carrying it across the room and upstairs to prop against the door. Dean would move it into the garage for treatment later.

As he crossed the threshold out of the basement, making sure he went last, there was not a flash of blue. Not even a whisper of a voice.

 

Dean went back before dinner. Faint dusky light filtered in through the basement windows, tiny and set high against the ceiling, and it was enough to navigate his way down the steps. “Hey, Castiel? You got your ears on?”

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean whipped around and, yep, there was Castiel, still as a statue behind him, arms stiffly at his sides. It was the first time Dean could sort of see what Castiel looked like – blue collared shirt, charcoal gray slacks, bare feet, dark hair that looked like it had at one point been combed but was just sort of fluffed up now, a faint smattering of stubble. He looked like just a normal guy.

The only reason Dean recognized him at all was because of the eyes.

“Geez, gotta get you a bell,” he muttered. He glanced between them for a moment and leaned back. “Uh, Cas? Personal space.”

Castiel frowned and stepped back. “Apologies.”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I’m… Thanks for this afternoon. With the drawer,” he said, muttering to the ground.

Castiel nodded and shifted his weight, looking for the life of him (ha) like he wanted to bolt just as much as Dean did. “Yes, well, I know firsthand how awful it is to be trapped down here. Wouldn’t want you suffering the same fate,” he said, waving a hand dismissively.

The movement tugged open his shirt a little bit, which Dean had only just realized was unbuttoned, and exposed a series of bloody scars across Castiel’s chest and abdomen. Dean managed to see just the corner of a larger, deeper wound in his chest that still looked painful, but Castiel didn’t seem to notice it at all. That must have been the kill shot.

Dean glanced back up at his eyes, and his scrutiny wasn’t even noticed. “Still, thanks.”

Castiel nodded slowly. “You’re welcome.”

They stood there awkwardly, just sort of staring at one another like they didn’t know what to do next. Which was sort of true. Dean had never seen a ghost before, and Castiel hadn’t seen another human up close in far too long.

He seemed harmless enough, and he did kind of save Dean’s life – at the very least saved him a trip to the hospital, which he had always hated. “So, uh,” Dean said brilliantly. “How do you… do that?” he asked.

Castiel squinted and tilted his head, parting a pair of plump, pink lips. “Do what?”

“The whole… invisible-but-touchy thing. How does that work?” Dean asked him.

Castiel shrugged. “It’s a learned skill. I wasn’t able to move things for a long time, and even then only small things. The chair was my first big break through,” he said, gesturing to it, almost proud.

“But Sam’s ball?” Dean asked, the memory surprising even him. Cas frowned like he didn’t remember. “That was you, wasn’t it? Sam lost a ball down here once and he said it just came rolling back to him.”

Castiel smiled, unexpectedly, and though the light was dim Dean could still see the little crinkles in the corners of his eyes. “Ah, yes. That was difficult. I hadn’t touched rubber before.”

Dean pursed his lips. “It’s different for everything?”

“Oh yes. I can’t even touch certain kinds of metal. Iron, for example, is very painful,” he explained.

He stayed down in the basement for a while, talking with Castiel about his past life, his family that he claimed to miss so much. Dean learned about every brother and sister – Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Lucifer, Hael, Anna, Rachel, there was even a Sam – and the girl that stabbed him.

“April. We were seeing each other, but it turned out that she was only after my inheritance. She thought she could collect that and the insurance money if she killed me off.”

“What a bitch,” Dean proclaimed.

“Dean? Where is that boy?” he heard his mother grumbling upstairs.

Dean turned ruefully to Cas. “That’s my cue.”

Castiel rose from his position on the floor, as did Dean, and he walked him to the stairs. “Thank you for listening, Dean. It’s nice to…” he said, not really sure how to end.

“To be heard,” Dean finished for him. “I hear ya, Cas.”

Castiel was practically beaming, smiling shyly at Dean with grateful moon eyes up through his thick lashes, shoulders hunched up a little. “I’ll… see you soon?” Castiel asked.

Dean nodded. “Sure. Yeah, see you soon, buddy,” he said, opening the door.

“There you are!” Mary called. “Shuck the corn, dear.”

 

“You were gone for a while,” Castiel informed him one day, like he didn’t already know.

Dean pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah. Road trip,” he explained, squinting at the pair of wires he was fiddling with, trying to balance the flashlight in between his neck and his shoulder while he stripped the ends. He had some real fond memories of that trip, and he was glad he got it out of his system before his middle ages. He would not have had that much fun if he were battling osteoporosis at the same time.

Castiel snuck up behind him and took hold of the flashlight, gingerly, and Dean straightened out his neck. “Thanks,” he mumbled, twisting the two wires of the fuse box together.

“Where did you go?”

“Hm?” Dean asked, really only half listening.

“On your road trip. Where did you go?” Castiel repeated.

Dean shrugged impatiently and hissed when he got shocked through the tips of his fingers. “I don’t remember, Cas. Everywhere? Tilt that up a bit, would you?” he said simply, jerking his head in the direction he wanted the flashlight to shine.

Castiel obeyed him, of course. “And you still came back,” Castiel observed.

“Well duh,” Dean said.

Castiel was quiet after that, and didn’t ask any more questions. “There is no sight as pleasing as one’s own home,” he said, somewhat cryptically.

With one more flick of the wrist, the lights came back on in the basement, and Dean heard his parents cheering upstairs. “Got that right,” Dean told him. He groaned quietly as he stood – it was getting tough for him to stand up after crouching like that for so long. Four years of sleeping in the back of your dad’s car will do that to you, Dean supposed.

Dean used to be a twitchy, reckless teenager. He went cross country, probably saw more than he should, and he felt more like an old man than a hot young thing in his mid-twenties. He _liked_ being home with his parents and his weird ghost best friend (it’s not like he made any others, only staying in each town for a few days at most).

“I’m not sure you’ll appreciate the sentiment,” Castiel began in that dry, amusing tone of his, “but I… missed you, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

The light bulb overhead flickered, and Dean and Cas stared at each other until it stopped.

 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean called as the door slid shut, whistling to himself. The ghost popped into existence right beside him as he walked over to the food stores.

“Hello, Dean.”

“What’s up, man?” he asked, twirling some cans around in his hands, looking for the one labeled WHOLE TOMATOES.

Castiel shrugged. “There’s a cat that sneaks in through the window when it rains. She stopped by again today,” he informed him, leaning against the crate.

Dean threw his head back and groaned. “ _That’s_ why I’ve been sneezing this week. I thought it was just the dust,” he said, balancing the cans in his hands. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll lock it up.”

Castiel frowned and picked at a loose thread on his shirt, doomed forever to hang limp there but never unravel. “Do you… have to? She never stays long. And it’s cold out.”

“Castiel, are you attached to the cat?” Dean asked, heading for the stairs.

“Perhaps,” the ghost answered.

Dean chuckled and shook his head. “Alright, you can keep it. But I better not see hide or hair of it, capiche?” he said sternly.

“Yeah, I capiche,” Cas responded, following him up the stairs.

“Hey, can I start calling you The Apparition Formerly Known As Cas?” Dean asked.

Castiel frowned. “I don’t understand that reference,” and Dean threw his head back in laughter.

“Who are you talking to?” he heard.

Dean turned around, and John was standing in the doorway, peering down at his son from the top of the stairs. It was an odd picture: Dean standing in the dark with arms full of tomato cans, talking seemingly to no one and laughing at air. He turned back around, and there was nobody there.

“Nobody,” Dean said. “Just thinking out loud.” He trotted up the rest of the steps and looked back before shutting the door.

A blue eye winked at him from the bottom of the stairs.

 

He started varnishing some of the stuff in the basement, just smoothing out the edges kind of thing, so that they’d sell better. That hand-carved wood stuff could get kind of pricey if you fixed it up right, so John let Dean have a go at it. To keep from spilling lacquer everywhere, Dean carried down bundles and bundles of newspapers to coat the floor. They mostly ended up sticking to the bottom of his boots and the clawed feet of a loveseat, but Castiel was immediately taken by them. “We have a black president?” he asked one day, crouching over the front page from like four months ago.

Dean wiped his forehead with the back of his hand – _stupid, now it’s gonna look like you smeared soy sauce all over yourself_ – and frowned at him. “Obama? Yeah.” A chilling thought occurs to Dean. “Oh god, your family weren’t like, _slave owners_ , were they? Because that’s really messed up.”

Castiel fixed Dean with a surly look that could rival Sam for best bitch face any day. “Don’t be ridiculous, Dean. I’m not _that_ old,” he said, pulling the paper into his lap. “I’m just surprised is all. It’s quite a step for America to take.”

Dean shook his head, small smile fixed in place. “Man, you are _so_ not ready for RuPaul.”

“Roo who?”

“Nothing,” Dean assuaged, running his brush over the slab of cherry again. “Hey, what’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, halting in his ministrations. Wood could wait.

Castiel shrugged and still didn’t look up from his paper, now crawling across Dean’s makeshift tarp to look at other headlines. “Not much really. It’s all a bit muddled up here,” he said, waving a finger next to his ear distractedly. “Your memories start to go, you know. Once you’ve been dead long enough.”

Dean froze. “Wow.”

“I can’t remember what Lucifer looked like,” he informed him, not in the least bit bothered. “I think he may have been blonde, but that’s about it.”

Dean set his brush across the stain can. “Cas, I’m…” he exhaled and resisted the urge to run his hand down his face. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t even know them,” Cas replied, unfolding an entertainment section. Dean noted the switch in pronoun, and realized that Cas was probably a lot sadder about this losing his family thing than he let on.

Cas was a good guy, if a little odd, you know? He deserved something nice done for him. It wasn’t _his_ fault he was stuck here. Even if the best he got was Dean, Dean could still try his damndest to at least get the poor guy to smile.

“A movie that is titled ‘50 Shades of Grey’ does not sound particularly exciting. Why is it the Number 1 Movie in America?” Castiel intoned, squinting at the small newsprint. Dean choked on empty air and Castiel did not understand why he was laughing.

 

“Have dinner with me.”

Castiel frowned. “What?”

Dean smiled from his spot on the floor, hands rested casually behind him, legs spread out across the floor and crossed at the ankle. “Dinner. You know. A real one.”

“I don’t eat,” Castiel reminded him drily.

Dean sighed. “Well, you sit at the ‘dinner table’ every night anyway,” Dean pointed out. “Might as well sit _with you_ ,” he added.

Castiel’s face turned sad. “Dean, I can’t leave the basement. You know that.”

“I know,” Dean told him. He paused. “Hang on.”

He got up and went up the stairs, taking two at a time, and threw open the refrigerator door. “What are you doing?” Mary asked from behind him.

He didn’t even flinch. He knew by now that Cas didn’t just show himself to anyone. Sometimes Dean wondered if he was the only one who could really see him, which lent itself to some late night doubts about his sanity.

“Early dinner. Think I’m gonna eat in the basement,” he said.

Mary tutted. “Down there? It’s probably got mold. I don’t see why you like it so much.”

Dean shrugged. “There’s a lot of cool stuff down there I never noticed before.”

Mary sighed. “Alright. But bring your plate back up,” she told him.

“Yes, Ma,” he said, pecking her temple. He discreetly snuck an extra plate and carried his haul downstairs.

Castiel was still sitting on the floor when Dean came back. “Well, come on, pull the chair over,” Dean said, yanking a small table forward by hooking his ankle around the leg. Dean had taught Cas poker on that table. The ghost spent half the time fascinated by the texture of paper and playing cards in his new form more than the actual game.

He set the food and plates down on the table and dragged another chair over, so that Dean and Cas were sitting opposite each other at the table.

“Holy shit,” Dean said, letting it sink in. “We’re eating dinner together.”

Castiel was staring down at the food in amazement, running his weird corporeal-but-not hand over the edge of the table. “It would appear so, yes.”

Dean handed him a plate, and Castiel hesitantly grasped it. He was still getting a handle on picking things up by himself, but by now he was well-practiced and adjusted easily. Dean spooned out some leftovers for the both of them and bowed his head. “You wanna do the honors?” he asked.

Castiel blinked. “Oh, um. Alright.” He folded his hands delicately. “Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty,” he rumbled, low and reverent, as if in a daze. “Through Christ our Lord, amen. Dean, this seems blasphemous, I don’t think I’m qualified to say grace.”

“It’s fine, Cas. Amen,” Dean murmured, and they put their hands down together. They stared at the food. “Well… Dig in?” Dean said, though it sounded more like a question to his ears.

Castiel picked up a green bean experimentally and bit the end, chewing slowly. Dean watched him as he chewed. “So?”

Castiel paused, thought for a minute, and swallowed. “Tastes like molecules,” he announced.

Dean barked a laugh and picked up his fork. “Don’t ever change, Cas.”

“My current state makes change impossible.”

“Just eat your vegetables, you dork.”

 

Dean stacked their clean plates neatly while Castiel packed up the leftovers. “Dean,” he began, soft. Dean held still and met his eyes, knowing that whatever Castiel had to say was going to be important. “Thank you, for this. I never thought I’d have something like that again.”

Dean shook his head. “Dude, it’s fine. I’m glad you could… you know. Enjoy it.”

Castiel smiled tentatively and fiddled again with the loose string on his shirt. “I did. Very much.”

Dean smiled down at the table while he took the leftover tins from Castiel. “Good.”

They hovered by the table for a moment, staring at each other. “Can you… I mean, I’m the first human you’ve talked to since you were alive, right?” Dean asked him.

Castiel nodded his agreement. “Yes.”

“So you can’t – I don’t know –”

Castiel reached out hesitantly, jerking to a stop right before his fingers met the back of Dean’s hand. “This might feel a little strange,” he warned, right before he stretched out his fingers.

It didn’t feel strange at all. It felt like a normal, albeit cold, platonic hand touch. Neither Dean nor Castiel was expecting him to be able to physically touch Dean – they had never tried, but Dean found himself letting go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Well that’s cool.”

Castiel laughed, watching his fingers trail designs into the back of Dean’s hand. “Yes, it is,” he said breathlessly, surprised at himself, surprised at the warmth radiating off of Dean, the softness of his skin. He felt everything so headily now, and Dean was his favorite thing to feel by far.

This new discovery resting heavily in their minds, Castiel pulled away, and Dean clutched the dirty dishes closer to his chest. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Dean promised.

Castiel nodded. “I’ll be here.”

Dean smiled at him one more time before he turned and headed for the stairs. He got all the way back to the fridge before he realized he was still smiling.

This was getting out of hand.

 

“Castiel, were you buried here?” he asked him one day, as Castiel was doodling lazy patterns onto his knee. He was fascinated by denim.

“I don’t remember,” he replied dreamily. He tended to do that; space out like he was caught between wherever ghosts go and wherever here was. “Maybe.”

Dean looked up any records on Castiel Milton in the local periodicals, checked the records at the morgues and funeral homes and graveyards, but found nothing. The official statement in the paper from Castiel’s brother Michael was that his body was never found.

Dean had a feeling that that’s why Castiel was stuck here. He was never laid to rest; he was never given his last rites. He was trapped, waiting for salvation and forgiveness and absolution, and none ever came. He had stayed locked in the dark basement until Dean found him.

He had almost a dozen books and newspapers flung all around him at his cubicle in the library, and was only getting more frustrated by the minute. Castiel couldn’t be allowed to stay here, no matter how much Dean may have wanted him to –

He didn’t belong there. He deserved peace. It was no life at all to be trapped in someone’s basement, let alone an afterlife.

Dean hesitantly walked into the Religion section.

 

He raised the idea to Castiel a few days later, reading up all he could on the matter. “I want to lay you to rest,” Dean told him, holding his hand among the newly varnished furniture. It was sort of poignant that Dean had finished his refurbishing project; there was no longer any reason for him to stay down in the basement, just like he knew there was no reason for Cas to stay either.

Castiel smirked. “Is that a flirtation?” he asked.

Dean’s ears reddened but he shook his head. “I’m serious, Cas. I think it’s about time you got out of here.”

Castiel frowned and let go of Dean’s hand. “What do you mean? Surely you’re not still afraid of me, are you? Or think I would hurt anyone?”

Dean shook his head. “No, no, not at all! I just…” He ran a hand down his face and sighed heavily. “Look, you should move on, ok? Head on over to Paradise. 72 virgins and all that.”

Castiel frowned. “Are you concerned that I am not _happy_?” he asked him incredulously, as if the very thought were ludicrous.

The cat came knocking at the window, and for once neither or them stood up to let her in. “Yeah! You don’t want to be stuck here forever, do you? If it were me, I’d go crazy!” Dean said.

Castiel narrowed his eyes – not in a mean way, but the way he tended to do when he was trying to understand one of Dean’s odd human eccentricities. “I like spending time with you, Dean. I value our friendship very much. I hope you understand that.”

Dean reddened further, flattered, but how was it possible that Cas was not understanding this? “Sure, Cas, I like you too, but I still think –”

Castiel leaned over and pressed his lips to Dean’s. Dean completely froze; he wasn’t sure what this thing with Cas had been leading up to, but he certainly hadn’t expected this. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, to be kissing Cas. He smelled like clean sheets and a fresh snow fall, clean and sharp. There was a little zing of a spark between them, like their kiss was electric. His eyes fluttered shut and he brought a hand up to run through Cas’s hair.

When they pulled back, Cas was smiling. “I’m perfectly content where I am,” he muttered, pecking Dean’s mouth one more time.

Dean sighed against his lips. “Yeah, and what happens when I leave, Cas? When my parents die and I sell the house? When _I_ die?” He looked sadly at his friend until Cas couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. His silence was very telling.

“You’d stay here forever, just to get a few good years with… me? Are you sure this isn’t just some weird Stockholm Syndrome?”

Castiel huffed. “I’m positive. You are the only person who’s ever seen me, cared enough to even raise the possibility that I could still –”

He cut himself off and ran a hand through his already messy hair. “I haven’t felt this way in a very long time, Dean, and I was starting to think I never would again.”

Dean shook his head and leaned their foreheads together, sighing. “I have to let you go, Cas. You don’t belong here.”

Castiel sighed back and kissed Dean one more time. He clasped his hand tightly in his.

“I may not remember my brothers’ faces anymore,” Cas began, looking at the floor. Slowly, he raised his eyes. “But I will always remember yours, Dean Winchester.”

Dean couldn’t speak. It didn’t deter Castiel from continuing. “I don’t know if you remember, but the lights blew out when you came home from your road trip.”

“That was you?” Dean asked quietly.

Castiel laughed a little. “I couldn’t believe you’d come home. I was very anxious to see you again.”

Dean laughed and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Every time the lights flicker, I’m going to think of you,” he confessed.

He stared deep into those blue eyes and began to recite.

 

For the first time in his life, Dean was alone in the basement.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, I couldn't leave it like that!

It was Halloween, and Dean had on some old boots he picked up in Nashville and one of his work bandanas tied around his neck. His dad had plunked a Stetson Dean didn’t know he owned on top of his head, and grumbled about “not staying up too late” before turning in himself. His old man was turning into a real homebody, going to bed before nine o’clock.

The doorbell rang intermittently, distracting Dean from the various movies he’d queued up on the classics channel. Around ten the original Wolfman started up, which Dean adored since it scared the crap out of Sam as a kid. The doorbell rang again, and Dean heaved himself off the couch, sticking his hat back on as he meandered toward the front door. He picked up the bowl of candy by the doorjamb and turned the knob.

Leaning against his doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, was Castiel.

Dean nearly dropped the freaking bowl. “Cas?” he gasped.

Castiel grinned. “Howdy, cowboy,” he said, saluting him in that stiff, awkward way Dean’s always sort of loved.

Dean chuckled and all but threw the bowl on the side table, reaching for Castiel’s shoulders and pulling him into a hug. “Dude, what are you doing here?” he asked in his ear, unable to hide the grin threatening to split his face in half. “I thought, you know… after…”

Castiel smiled. “Dean, it’s Halloween. Don’t you know the mythology?” He snuck right up in Dean’s face, and twisted the bandana around his fingers. “One night a year, ghosts walk the earth.”

Dean suddenly couldn’t focus very well. “That’s a little freaky.”

Cas leaned up a little, still smiling at him. “I can be freaky,” he whispered, finally pressing his lips to Dean’s.

Dean sighed and his hands went directly to Cas’s hips, pulling him tight to him. “Hey, you’re outside,” he said densely.

Castiel chuckled a little as he pulled back. “I’ve been traveling. I’m sorry it took so long to get to you – there was just so much to see, so much I’ve missed,” he explained, eyes going wide and excited. “Dean, the world has changed so much. I don’t think I fully grasped that before.”

Dean chuckled and rested his forehead against Castiel’s. “Tell me about it inside. I’ve got popcorn,” he tried to bribe.

“Buttered, I hope,” Cas murmured. “Though it will still just taste like atoms.”

He allowed himself to be pulled into the house, and Dean shut the door eagerly behind him. Cas flexed his toes – covered in shoes, now – on the welcome mat and looked around. “You know, it’s funny,” he said, with a soft hint of a smile on his face. “I’ve never been through the front door before.”

Dean did a little bit of a double take and grinned. “Come on. Let me give you the tour,” he said, holding out his hand.

Cas took it, and allowed himself to be led through the house.


End file.
